Re: [RFC 00/19] KVM: s390/crypto/vfio: guest dedicated crypto adapters

From: Tony Krowiak
Date: Mon Oct 16 2017 - 12:28:08 EST


On 10/16/2017 06:05 AM, Cornelia Huck wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 13:38:45 -0400
Tony Krowiak <akrowiak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Overview:
--------
An adjunct processor (AP) facility is an IBM Z cryptographic facility. The
AP facility is comprised of three AP instructions and from 1 to 256 AP
adapter cards. The design takes advantage of the interpretive execution mode
provided by the SIE architecture. With interpretive execution mode, the AP
instructions executed on the guest are interpreted by the hardware. This
allows guests direct access to AP adapter cards. The first goal of this
patch series is to provide direct access by a KVM guest to an AP as a
pass-through device. The second goal is to provide administrators with the
means to configure KVM guests to grant direct access to AP facilities
assigned to the LPAR in which the host linux system is running.

To facilitate the comprehension of the design, let's present an overview of
the AP architecture.
I have not yet looked at the patches (and I'm not sure whether I'll be
able to do so until after the KVM Forum), but I think this also needs
some explanation under Documentation/, so people can still make sense
of it in the future.
That makes sense, I will create a document.